The Tyro's Tool Kit

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Making sense of an overwhelming selection of steel.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE CONTESTS is the one in which the winner is given five minutes, an empty cart and carte blanche to clear a store's shelves of whatever looks appealing. We all can imagine ourselves successfully sacking the grocery aisles, but how many would feel comfortable making the best choices in a hardware store?

Having a toolbox ready with the utensils of basic maintenance is as important to the car owner as mechanical know-how. The latter develops with experience; the former, by understanding each tool's function and its limits in routine repair.

Thankfully, most of us have only a car or two (and maybe some lawn and garden power equipment) to contend with. The work we'll be doing probably won't involve complicated electronics, diagnosis or even heavy mechanical repair. But it can still be a jolt to see the spread of metal that's needed to keep after just the garden-variety jobs.

The shock is eased somewhat by the fact that quality consumer-grade tools—those still old-time tough—are a sound purchase. "Bargain" brands almost never are-either they're built to sloppy tolerances, made from inferior steel or designed and finished poorly. Using them is more than an exercise in frustration; they might even be the cause of an injury, whether handled properly or not.

How do you shop for a decent product? Start with the tangibles: A good tool is solid and well balanced. It feels comfortable in your hand because it's been engineered to fit there. The finish really is finished—the forgings are clean and the rough areas machined and polished. Where rust resistance is a factor, the nickel-chrome plating is smooth and consistent.

Tools with a moving mechanism—pliers, ratchets, universal-joint connectors—should operate smoothly without binding or, to the other extreme, rocking sloppily on their pivots. A loose action is the mark of a potential "knuckle-buster" and should be shunned like the plague.

Chances are that if a tool is well made, the manufacturer will stand behind it with a lifetime warranty. Name-brand tool lines earned their reputations long ago by replacing broken pieces outright, no questions asked. That guarantee still holds in most cases, and, though it doesn't come cheaply, it's worth the satisfaction of knowing that each purchase you make should be your last.

Even in a modest tool set, you'll need representation in each of what I'll call the working categories: turning, gripping, cutting and beating. Time was, unless you had a soft spot for foreign cars, a basic set of "American" wrenches would do a pretty fair job of answering most mechanical needs. Not so today. Since the 1970s, the last holdouts of the English system of measurement-Britain, Canada and ultimately the U.S. have been converting to the metric system. Because the changeover isn't happening all at once, a new car or truck may use a combination of systems, forcing even the occasional mechanic to "tool up" with metric wrenches and sockets.